Cuenca Enchanted City rock formations
— a forest the limestone grew instead of trees.
Not only on a wall.
Cuenca Enchanted City rock formations, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“A karst landscape of weathered limestone in the Iberian highlands, where the rock has been shaped by rain and wind into towers, arches, and animal silhouettes. A short marked loop threads between them. Pines and holm oaks fill the gaps. The whole place sits above 1,500 metres, and the air through it has the dry cool smell of upland Spanish forest. — from the studio
The place, in three passes.
La Ciudad Encantada, the Enchanted City, is a karst rock site in the Serranía de Cuenca, in Castilla-La Mancha, about 30 km north of the city of Cuenca. It sits at roughly 1,500 metres above sea level, within the larger Serranía de Cuenca Natural Park established in 2007. The terrain is dolomitic limestone laid down in the Cretaceous, sculpted over millions of years by rain, ice, and the slow chemistry of carbonic acid. The site was declared a National Natural Site in 1929, one of the earliest such designations in Spain, and remains the best-known karst landscape in the country.
The rock is dolomitic limestone formed in shallow seas during the Cretaceous, roughly 90 million years ago. Differential weathering on the horizontal bedding planes, combined with slow dissolution of the carbonate by slightly acidic rainwater, has left mushrooms, arches, walls, and shapes the visitor centre has named (the Slip, the Seal, the Roman Bridge, the Faces, the Boats). A marked walking loop of about three kilometres threads between the formations through a forest of Spanish black pine and holm oak. The route is mostly level and takes around two hours at an easy pace.
The site is privately managed and charges a small admission, currently around 6 euros, with a small car park, a visitor centre, and a restaurant at the entrance. It opens daily, with shorter winter hours; summer days run from about 10:00 to dusk. The drive from Cuenca takes roughly 35 minutes along the CM-2104, climbing through pine forest the whole way. The walk is suitable for children and easy adults; sturdy shoes are enough. Snow is possible from December to March, and the site sometimes closes briefly after storms.
